Keyboard Wizard Performances

Some of the theatrical productions, concerts, club dates, Academy Awards events, and Hollywood motion picture
and television scoring sessions
that Keyboard Wizard
has been a part of, in the United States and abroad:

As an example of a complex problem which was solved with Keyboard Wizard, the Korngold piece in the video at
www.youtube.com/embed/jt4ZscwRNaA
required me to play several parts at once, in real time: Tiefe Glock, Low Tubular Bells, Celeste, Organ, and Female Choir.
The parts were condensed to their least-common rhythmic element into the Keyboard Wizard part on the bottom two lines
of the attached score, and mapped to the appropriate sound libraries and modules, producing all the parts with a
single keyboardist. On that score, you can see circled asterisks, indicating where the keyboardist would need to switch
between steps (a step being a collection of note-mappings, layers, splits, or individual sounds).
At some point I decided that it would be best to use Keyboard Wizard's "Auto-Change Trigger" feature to have the computer
make some of the switches for me, and it did so flawlessly, by "listening" to the music (actually interpreting a series of
notes and chords played via MIDI), and changing steps at the exact instant required.

Keyboard Wizard enhances all 56 performances (8:30pm to 10:30pm, seven nights per week) of the
2010 Pageant of the Masters show
"Eat, Drink and be Merry", part
of the annual Festival of Arts
in Laguna Beach, California.
Both orchestral keyboardists, John Sawoski and Peter Herz, use
Keyboard Wizard, running on Windows 7.

Images from the orchestra pit:

John Sawoski, Keyboard 1.

Peter Herz, Keyboard 2
The Keyboard Wizard
screen is to the left of the music stand.

Keyboard 1 setup, with Keyboard Wizard running on Windows 7 on both a
laptop (left) and a
desktop (right)
computer. The laptop serves as a backup, which remains in sync with the main (desktop) machine.
One press of a MIDI key toggles between the two Keyboard Wizard instances, assuring that "the show goes on"
even if something goes wrong with the main computer.
The MIDI keyboard triggers Keyboard Wizard, which in turn triggers virtual instrument libraries (not pictured)
running on both computers:
Kontakt4,
Quantum Leap Pianos,
Quantum Leap Gypsy,
EastWest FabFour,
Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra,
ToneHammer Circle Bells,
ToneHammer Propanium,
and others.

Keyboard Wizard enhances
the California State
University at Fullerton ("Cal State Fullerton")
production of Miss Saigon,
in the Little Theatre.
Keyboard Wizard runs on a Windows XP machine, and takes its input from, and processes
output sent to, a Kurzweil PC3X keyboard.
Peter Herz is the keyboardist.

Photo from the pit, where the Roland RD-700GX keyboard shown provided MIDI input to Keyboard Wizard,
which then controlled the RD700-GX (with Orchestral Expansion Board),
Kontakt3 (running East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Platinum XP,
East West Quantum Leap Colossus, and custom patches and sound effects),
and East West Play (running Quantum Leap Pianos and Quantum Leap Gypsy):

See Broadway Performance Systems, Inc.' printed program credit
here (image is 2MB, credit is in lower left corner).

I used Keyboard Wizard with good success on last night's Michael Feinstein/Linda Eder concert at the
McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert.

Although the requirements for this show were fairly simple (mostly single patches with only
a couple of splits, transpositions and velocity tweaks), setting up the patch list on my MacBook Pro
was far more convenient than navigating an LCD screen on the front panel of my keyboard controller.
And I assigned bookmarks for the three most-used patches in the show so that I could grab them instantly.

Note that I didn't have power to my rig until barely 30 minutes before the start of rehearsal,
yet I was able to create the entire Keyboard Wizard routing setup quickly and painlessly.

In the past I've done shows like this entirely on one synth simply for the convenience of accessing
only on-board patches. But because Keyboard Wizard makes communication to external modules so easy,
I brought a Muse Receptor and Roland Fantom-XR, with an RME Fireface 800 as the interface.
It was a big sonic upgrade, and the music director was thrilled.

The Pasadena POPS,
Rachael Worby, Conductor,
at Pasadena City Hall, Pasadena, California, in a
"Music Under the Stars" concert.
It was used to perform piano, harp, and guitar on:
Star Spangled Banner,
Pops Hoe-Down,
Porgy and Bess "Summertime",
Can You Feel the Love Tonight,
Armed Forces Salute,
"Mambo" from West Side Story,
American Salute,
Star Wars Suite: The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) and Main Title,
The Stars and Stripes Forever,
America the Beautiful,
Deep River,
The Sound of Music (excerpts),
Battle Hymn of the Republic,
and Gettysburg Main Theme.
John Sawoski is the keyboardist.

Saturday, May 10, 2008:

The Capistrano Valley Symphony,
David Matthies, Conductor.
It is used to perform piano and harp on
Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana,
Romeo and Juliet Overture,
Saturday Night Waltz,
Dance of the Hours,
The Blue Danube Waltz,
Aaron Copland's Hoe-Down,
Armed Forces Salute,
Beach Boys Medley,
What a Wonderful World,
and The Stars and Stripes Forever.
John Sawoski is the keyboardist.

Saturday, April 26, 2008:

Keyboard Wizard used in the pit at the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion, Los Angeles, California (former home of the Academy Awards ceremonies)
where it enhances
the keyboard in
the orchestra accompanying the
20th Anniversary Spotlight Awards,
hosted by actor Tony D'Anza, with David Benoit as a celebrity judge.
John Sawoski is the keyboardist.